Indonesian authorities have received a signal at sea that could come from Sriwijaya Air's Boeing 737-500, which crashed off Jakarta yesterday, with 62 people on board, shortly after take-off. Meanwhile, human remains, debris and baby clothes were found in the waters of the Indonesian capital. Extensive searches in the Java Sea have detected a signal from a device, while it seems unlikely that there were survivors of the disaster.
The plane of the local company Sriwijaya Air, which took off from Jakarta and was bound for Pontianak, in Borneo, lost contact with the control tower yesterday, a few minutes after takeoff. No details have yet been provided by the authorities about the possible causes of the accident. Police said they had found luggage, human remains and baby clothes and are proceeding with the identification. The first debris from the plane was taken to Jakarta's main port.
According to reports in local media, fishermen in the Thousand Islands, an archipelago north of Jakarta, had seen metal objects believed to be part of an airplane. The television images showed relatives and friends of people on board the plane crying, bathing and hugging each other while waiting at the airports of Jakarta and Pontianak. The airline reported that the plane flew an estimated 90 minutes from Jakarta to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province on Borneo Island, Indonesia. The Sriwijaya Air plane was in good condition, the company's CEO Jefferson Irwin Jauwena told reporters, adding that the flight took off with a 30-minute delay in take-off due to heavy rain.
Also read: Air Canada makes unplanned Boeing 737-8 MAX landing